The London Psilocybin Symposium - A Recap

On Friday 15 October, I had the honour of hosting the Psychedelic Society's first big in-person event since the pandemic began - a symposium all about psilocybin therapy. With nearly two years of the UK psychedelic community separated by lockdown restrictions, one could easily sense the collective joy that stemmed from simply being in a shared space.

In fact, this was the first event I'd ever hosted in the flesh. I felt extremely nervous without the comforts of still wearing pyjama-bottoms beneath the Zoom camera screen or having a mug of my favourite brew in hand. However, once the event started and the atmosphere of passion, excitement and concern for the future grew, my nerves disappeared, and words began to flow on the accumulative energy of the evening.

Communicating with fungi

Beginning the event was a unique experience of deep listening to three different soundscapes, generated by the medicinal mushrooms Shiitake, Lion's Mane, and the infamously potent psychedelic mushroom - McKennaii Cubensis. The experimental artists presenting their work had used a rather futuristic-sounding technology known as bio-sonification to turn the natural bio-rhythms of mycelium into audible melodic patterns. The sounds were extraordinarily enchanting and made me feel as if I was in a sort of haunted, other-worldly spa.

Chatting with one of the artists after the event, Katya Sykes, we discussed the myriad of possibilities that could emerge from such work, such as running therapeutic sound baths where people can lie and listen to the sounds of the mushrooms, or perhaps even incorporating the recordings into music for psychedelic therapy. Sticking on my hippie hat, I imagined the potential of using the bio-sonification sort of like oracle cards, seeing how mushrooms might respond melodically to different life questions.

Biosonification - Photo - Radski Photography

The importance of psychedelic integration

After grounding with mycelial sounds, the first speakers of the evening, Maria Papysorou and Tim Read were invited to the stage. The pair both have rich histories within the world of psychedelics and mental health, and based on their experience, co-founded the Institute of Psychedelic Therapy (IPT) - a platform organisation whose aims are to create community among mental health specialists working in psychedelics, and offer in-depth training for psychedelic therapists.

A key element of my conversations with Maria and Tim that stood out was the importance of integration. A concept we at the Psychedelic Renaissance are very passionate about educating others on. Integration is the vital process in which people make sense and learn from their psychedelic experiences. Although this term is commonly associated with psychedelic experiences, the speakers very rightly pointed out the practice of understanding and learning from all life's experiences mean integration can be a whole way of being.

Maria Papysorou and Tim Read - Institute of Psychedelic Therapy (IPT) - Photo - Radski Photography

Embodying a psychedelic retreat

Following the first interval, the co-director of Alalaho - a psilocybin retreat centre in the Netherlands - Biz Bliss, took to the stage. With our eyes closed, Biz guided the audience through an imagined psychedelic retreat, visualising ourselves creating the initial intention, journeying with psilocybin truffles, and then integrating our journeys afterwards. Ending with the resonating sounds of a drum, when I opened my eyes and looked at everybody across the room, I felt connected to them all like we'd all really made this journey together.

From her extensive experience, Biz called attention to what it means to be a guide in the psychedelic space - calling attention to the dissolving of boundaries and transference of energies that can happen in psychedelic sessions. And the necessity for self-development and what she called "personal plumbing" to allow for full presence and support during somebody's psychedelic journey.

By this point in the evening, the mycelial networks feeding between the speakers' work had become apparent. Maria and Tim spoke about building communities of psychedelic guides to support one another, and Biz highlighted from her experience why this support may be necessary. I'm sure the singing mushrooms would agree.

Legalising Psilocybin

After a second interval and some extremely captivating and moving live folk music, various people within the psychedelic community presented their work. Firstly was Timmy Davis - head of the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group's Psilocybin Rescheduling Project. Speaking of the barriers researchers face to access psilocybin, preventing it from becoming a medically available and accessible treatment, he encouraged audience members to write to their local MP demanding psilocybin be moved from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2.

Echoing Timmy, a little campaign note from me:

If you are reading this and have any interest in seeing the development of psilocybin as an available treatment, then please write to your MP. It is their job to represent you, so the more people we can have raising this issue, the more likely government will respond.

Earlier this year we published a blog post about the urgency to reschedule psilocybin and actions we can do to move this campaign. You can find the blog piece here.

Building best practices in Psychedelics

Next up to speak was mental health specialist Ashleigh Murphy-Beiner. Alongside our project director Anya Oleksiuk, Ashleigh co-founded the Association for Psychedelic Therapists (APT) - an organisation committed to building safe and ethical practices in psychedelic therapy. She raised a critical concern to the glamourisation of psychedelics in the media, self-medicating, and the considerable number of psychedelic start-up companies and underground healers that have emerged over the last couple of years. These issues highlighted the need to develop frameworks for best practices that safeguard all people involved in the psychedelic field.

Ashleigh also called attention to the concerns about accessibility, making sure if and when psilocybin therapy is legalised that it's not just available to those who can afford its high prices - noting that social inequality is a key factor in mental health.

For the final presentation, Leonie Schneider and Ian Roullier introduced the Psychedelic Participant Advocacy Network (PsyPAN). - an organisation they founded retrospect to their experiences as participants on the Imperial College psilocybin for depression trials. PsyPAN strives to build best practices within the field of psychedelics, similar to APT, by taking into account the lived experiences of trial participants. By doing so, they hope to help build models that safeguard and ensure wellbeing in all psychedelic clinical trial participants, including those in blinded studies who don't receive any psychedelic treatment and those that don't respond to psychedelics (as pointed out - these drugs aren't magic bullets and may not work for everyone). Again - an emphasis was made on the importance of aftercare and integration of psychedelic experiences - in Ian's words: "integration is the key piece of this puzzle."

Interweaving minds

By now, it was obvious how all these threads were weaving together to help shape the future of psychedelic therapy. When designing training programmes for psychedelic facilitators, Maria and Tim with IPT could consider looking to the expertise of people like Bizz - who have extensive experience holding this space. Their facilitators-in-training will need to follow frameworks to guarantee they meet ethical standards, hence the importance of Ashleigh's work with APT. And importantly, all professionals involved want to make sure that patients have the maximum benefit possible from their experiences. So, organisations like PsyPAN, which consider lived patient experiences, are a vital part of this picture.

Underpinning this entangled mycelial network of minds is the barrier caused by psilocybin regulatory laws. Thus, the necessity of players like Timmy and the CDPRG on the law-enforcement side of psychedelics. And then, in a rather "chicken-and-egg" like manner, the need of the mentioned organisations to help ensure positive patient outcomes so reformists can make a strong case for legalising psilocybin.

L-R: Dr. Rosalind Watts, Ian Roullier, Leonie Schneider, Ashleigh Murphy-Beiner, Timmy Davis, Martha Allitt - Photo - Radski Photography

The Psychedelic Renaissance

Psychedelic therapist Rosalind Watts joined for the final panel to end the evening. As Rosalind, Leonie and Ashleigh all feature in our documentary, it was exciting to see them together in person and witness how their insights and passion fed one another among the other panellists. What was clear throughout the panel is that ultimately we want the psychedelic movement to be used as a force for good because, ultimately, we want to help the world heal.

The conversations really brought to life why we're doing the work we are at the Psychedelic Renaissance. Psychedelics are becoming increasingly popular, and as they begin to pour out into the mainstream, it's essential to inform wider society about their therapeutic applications, ethical concerns and safe and responsible use. By releasing our educational documentary with free public screenings, and producing ongoing content on blog page, social media, and newsletters, we hope to educate the masses and perpetuate the most conducive ways for healing.

We’re incredibly grateful to have raised some awareness and delighted that over £1.2K from the event could be put towards the Psychedelic Society’s harm-reduction resources. Unfortunately, because of unseen added costs related to pandemic safety, we were unable to raise funds directly for our film project as planned, during the event. We’re continuing to raise funds via our GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign through to the end of December 2021, in an effort to finish The Psychedelic Renaissance film for public viewing in 2022! We are so fortunate to have your dedication and support, and we ask that you please consider sharing the campaign with loved ones and community members. Please stay tuned, as we provide updates on our process, including new partnership announcements in the coming months.

Psychedelic Renaissance co-director Anya Oleksiuk - and Me! - Photo - Radski Photography

Moving forward

During the imagined psilocybin retreat, Bizz alluded to the significance of connecting to others. Although "work" with psilocybin and other psychedelics may be ultimately internal, there's a magical power of collective energies that holds everyone together. I felt such power of connection with everybody at the venue, despite starting off the evening as a bunch of complete strangers.

In the context of psychedelics, the necessity of connecting minds is vital to ensure that everybody's voice is heard, so the movement can grow in ways that consider the wellbeing of all people. And to create communities, so people can feel supported whether for facilitating, participating or playing any other role relating to altered states.

In light of the recurring theme of integration, I hope that people are able to take any lessons they picked up from the event and weave them into their everyday lives. Because all these aspects of psychedelic therapy - the integrity, community and after-care, aren't just lessons for the movement, but lessons for the wellbeing of all.